Mourning Period
by Tempeck2
Summary: Sometimes life just deals you a horrible hand of cards. This is how I perceived what Barney was feeling on and around the episode 5x17, "Of Course". Sometimes you just have to be miserable. Other times... it helps if you have friends. Multi-Chapter. :
1. Mourning Period

**This is the first of many short stories about and concerning the episode 5x17, "Of Course". After watching that episode for like the 20th time, I wondered why nobody cared if Barney was hurt by the break just as much as Robin. I don't own any of the characters or the show. Thanks for reading. Enjoy.**

It wasn't fair.

It really wasn't fair at all.

He did all of this, giving up a dream girl, a night of wonderful passion, one of his favorite Italian leather suits, and now he has the frickin' flu? He did all of this for his Ex! His EX-girlfriend. And they get to have fun at his expense.

He didn't know.

He honestly didn't know.

He thought everything was fine. She seemed okay. Sure she stopped doing things like: Going out on dates, and enjoying his little quips about his 'conquests'. But still she seemed okay.

That is until Lily brought up the problem. Now he knows. Now he sees. He's happy that she's happy, but it still tears him up inside. Can't they see the look of despair that's on his face. Can't they see how much this truly effects him?

He lied.

Ok, so he lied. He lied about the girls, he lied about the conquests, he lied like a bad rug, but he had to. Robin's been upset. She thinks she's the only one that went through a break up? She thinks she's the only one who got hurt?

Now he sits here alone. Wrapped up in his comforter, watching some tv on mute. He sits there, just like he does most days when he tells his friends that he is sleeping with another girl. When he goes on another one of his 'conquests'.

They don't know. They don't know where he is right now, they don't know what he's feeling. All they know is that Robin feels better. He is truly happy for her, but in some way, he's also very hurt.

He looks at her and sees the first woman that he actually had legit feelings for, in a very long time. He looks at her and sees a friend that he's had for almost a decade. He loves her. He'll admit it. He really does love her. He wants her to be happy.

But right now. He doesn't want to think about it. Right at this very second, he doesn't care.

He just wants to lie here. In his empty house, with his empty heart, and rot. He doesn't care if they know where he is, or how shitty he's feeling. He doesn't think they would care even if they did know. He knows, somewhere deep down in his fever drenched mind, that his friends actually do care for him a lot. He knows that they would never hurt him intentionally. But right now, that doesn't even register as he tries to get the comfort that has eluded him for what felt like forever.

He just wants to sleep.

He wonders what his friends would think of him if they saw him laid up in bed and feeling terrible for himself. They would probably laugh and call him a wuss. 'He doesn't get sick', they would say. They would mock him with all of the stupid things he had said in the past about how the 'Great Barnicle' never gets sick.

He's cold in all the wrong places and hot in all the others. He just wants to go to sleep and forget the whole Robin thing, and the Anita thing, and pretty much the everything.

He's tired of playing the playboy, always-got-to-look-good, person. He just wants to be left alone.

He tried.

He really tried.

He just figures that he's no good at relationships, that he's no good at being the boyfriend, or the Ex-boyfriend. He kind of wants to just crawl in a hole and lie there for a while.

He knows eventually that this will all blow over and that his friends will probably find something else to focus on... eventually.

But for right now, Barney Stinson, just wants to pull his covers over his head and go to sleep. He just wants to be miserable for a while.

He now realizes that the time when he lied straight to their faces, was a cover up of his emotions, but this. This time right here?

Well let's just say that Robin Sherbotskiy isn't the only one who gets a mourning period.

**And that is the first installment. There will be more to come. Thanks for reading. Bye. **


	2. Masks

**This is the second installment of the mourning period fic. I didn't really know where to go with, but here it is. I own nothing. Thanks for reading.**

He knows.

He knows now.

He knows what she did.

He knows what she did to hurt him. To humiliate him. To get him back.

Robin is the reason he met Anita. Robin is the reason that he jumped in the Hudson. Robin is the reason that he still has this stupid flu. It's all Robin.

He would never have found out, but Lily told him. Her and her big mouth. She tells everyone everything... Which is usually a quality that he quite enjoyed, but not anymore.

He was living in peaceful ignorance. His only despairing thought was that of Robin and Don together and happy. Which in retrospect was a two sided coin. On one side there's Robin happy, which is exactly what he wanted. He wanted her to be happy and with someone who loves her, and he want her to be exactly where she is. On the other side however. It's Robin happy with Don. With not him.

She's happy. She's a coin with another guy. And she hurt him.

Do you even know what floats around in the Hudson? Just to give you a hint; fish don't even live there. They swim around in their own excrement day in and day out, yet they won't set fin in the Hudson.

He jumped in that! He jumped in that for her. Because he promised. Because he felt bad.

And now... He feels worse.

It wasn't enough that he was unintentionally hurting one of the people that he love most in the world. Oh no, someone had to tell him that she was the very reason he gave up a beautiful girl. The very reason that he met this girl to begin with...

Why!

Why can't he be happy!

Why is he not allowed?

Everyone else gets to be. There's Marshall and Lily who have seemed to have gotten 'it' all figured out. There's Ted who is in his ever raging battle to have the perfect girlfriend-to-wife thing that everyone is looking for. He'll get it eventually. I mean come on... it's Ted. And then there's Robin.

Robin.

Robin and Don. That used to be Robin and Barney. Used to be.

And now it's just Barney. Just sad. Alone. Miserable Barney. God he's miserable.

He just wishes it would stop. He has sunk into this deep depression. This absolute funk. Little by little he is tearing himself to pieces.

But no one knows. No one can tell. Instead of show his true agony. He has slipped on a mask. It's one of many. Sometimes it's hard to remember that he's got one on at all, but he has. Almost all the time now. Unfortunately it's not the only one he has to wear today.

He has to wear one to look happy, one to look normal, one to look health, and one to look like he's not all torn to shreds inside.

They're all basically the same mask. The one he uses all the time. The one he uses to look absolutely, totally... sane.

And now as he sit with his friends and listen to what happened in the day or what will happen later. He slip on another mask:

One to look like Barney Stinson.

Because today... They won't expect anyone else.

**And that was the end of the second installment. More to come. Please review, and please keep reading. Thanks and goodbye.**


	3. Distractions

**This is the third installment. I hope you guys like it. This is centered around the episode 5x19, "Zoo or False". I don't own anything i suppose. Thanks for reading. **

It's a distraction, and he's so grateful for it, you don't even know.

Since the whole Robin thing, and then the whole Anita/Robin thing, and then the whole Barney/Hudson River thing; he's begun to put his life into a new perspective.

Obviously he can't keep going the way he is. Not only is it severely self-destructive, but also he doesn't want to keep the charade up. He doesn't want to keep telling his friends what he's always told them about his personal life and hope to God that they don't look any deeper.

That's why he so grateful for this distraction. He knew it was horrible. Marshall getting mugged. Not good. Of course, Marshall getting mugged by a primate was albeit, hilarious. It's still awful.

Right now Barney's amazed. Today he saw something he never thought anyone else could pull off.

A mask.

Some one in their tight-knit little group had on a mask.

Marshall.

Usually, like Ted, Marshall wore his heart on his sleeves for everyone to see. On any given day, it honestly took more time to ask Marshall if something was wrong, as opposed to just looking at him and see that something was not right.

But today, Barney could see a mask. Firmly in place on one of his best friend's faces. And it worried him.

Marshall had on a mask that no one but him could see. Or so he'd like to think. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Barney still couldn't help but put himself in the place of the forlorn superhero that can sense when something was a miss, but surprisingly be the only individual in the story who could do so.

Marshall never hid anything. While this statement seems untrue and ridiculous. It literally could not be closer to the honest to God truth.

For one... Lily.

As all good couples know: Honesty is the best policy. Lily and Marshall take that to a whole new perspective. There are rare times when one of them is doing something that the other doesn't know about. And that's like Jurassic Park rare.

And for two... there's the gang.

Ted, Robin, and Barney. Despite there utter lack of poise whenever they see Marshall and Lily doing something all lovey-dove and romantic. They probably could not function without those two being so... like they are.

So this is what Barney sees. Marshall with a mask on. One of his masks. Marshall did not ask if he could take it. It is not his. Barney is not being possessive about not being the one with the mask on, but without something to hide who he truly is he feels exposed... naked.

That's why he loves the fact that this distraction has come up. If you remember back to what just occurred you would realize that Barney was not the main character in this chapter of his story. Why? Because that's what distractions are designed to do... distract.

It won't last long, and he won't like it when the distraction fails and his mask will be back in his possession, but that doesn't mean that he can't enjoy this little vacation away from himself.

Distractions... are key.

**And that's the third. Thanks again for reading, and please do not hesitate to review. I appreciate it. Bye.**


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